For some tragic comic relief, I share “Orthodox Catholic Idolatry,” along with the other pages of the deranged, sacrilegious site. It is as if Jack Chick gave up his cartoon shtick and decided to become a peculiar photographic propagandist.

I would like to believe that this form of Protestantism—let’s call it anoetic confessionalism—is rare. I know from familiar experience that it is not. Like Southern Baptists’ proudly imagining themselves heirs to Sabellians and Cathars or Seventh Day Adventists’ thinking that Constantine invented the Roman papacy, these folks dig their dogma from the sludge of stupidity. Among the sad but devilishly entertaining claims of the site, we see repeated and emphasized references to the Satanic “skull and bones” on Orthodox crosses, which connects us to Yale, the Illuminati, the Bush family, and the University of Texas. Were it ironic, the site would be riotously funny. Alas, I fear that the page administrator is quite sincere.

Of course, the skull and bones at the foot of the cross in traditional iconography represents Christ’s triumph over death through the cross. This is not an arcane doctrine; it is transparently obvious to believers and to the vast majority of onlookers with a shred of common sense and fairness. The lies, delusion, and ill will involved in these Wormwoodian mockeries of apologetics suffice to anger me, but the idiocy of it all makes it a bit hard to take seriously. If only it were a sick joke . . .